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Imitation of Cheshire Cheese

A cheese made by curdling milk, salting, pressing, aging, and adding white wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and white wine work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 929 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity. The science ↓

Imitation of Cheshire Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curd

  1. Set the milk to curdle.

  2. Gently draw the curd to one side.

  3. Break the curd regularly to retain richness.

  4. Transfer the curd to a cheese vat.

  5. Press the curd in the vat.

  6. Turn the curd often while salting at different times.

Shape and age

  1. Shape the cheese to about 8 inches thick.

  2. Do not cut the cheese for at least 12 months.

  3. Turn the cheese frequently during aging.

  4. Rub the cheese frequently during aging.

  5. After a year, cut a hole in the top of the cheese.

  6. Pour ¼ pint of white wine into the hole.

  7. Seal the hole.

  8. Store the cheese in a wine cellar for an additional 6 months.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Milk + white winetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together929 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Milk
Curdles into curd, which forms the body of the cheese.
White wine
Poured into the aged cheese to add aroma and flavour.

The step that matters

Break the curd regularly to retain richness. Breaking the curd releases whey and controls moisture, so the curd firms evenly and the cheese keeps its rich texture. Uneven breaking leaves pockets of moisture that can spoil or age unevenly.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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